Tiny UK radio frequency chip designer Mirics, has formed a partnership with a major Chinese base band chip supplier to build USB dongles for PCs which can receive the new CMMB STiMi mobile TV service.
Mirics has pioneered the idea of having the RF component on a dongle and the modulation logic driven through software running through a PC’s processor, and as such already offers FM, DAB, T-DMB, DVB-T and ISDB-T on a laptop, and told us as IBC this year that it would shortly have a CMMB software demodulator for China.
It’s only natural that a DVB-H, ATSC and ATSC M/H tuner won’t be far behind so that the company can drive virtually all TV and Mobile TV into a single RF dongle or eventually a motherboard chip for just a few dollars. Its radio chips provides coverage for all major broadcast bands ranging from 100KHz -1.9GHz and uses just 46mA of power in continuous operation.
The Chinese system however looks like it may require an extra chip rather than being implemented purely in software, because it integrates Mirics’ FlexiRF tuner technology with Spreadtrum’s CMMB demodulator and decoder system-on-chip. This is probably due to the special diversity elements that are required to receive both a satellite signal and a terrestrial signal in different spectrum, and merge the two.
Spreadtrum Communications was started in 2001 and is a US HQ’d, but mostly Chinese, business which designs baseband communications chips for the mobile market. Last quarter’s revenues were around $20 million.
The new PC platform will be out just prior to Christmas and the two companies also plan to work together on a cellular handset reference design for certain unnamed OEM’s and ODM’s in China.
Mirics was originally backed with Series A funding from Pond Venture Partners, Europe’s largest early-stage technology fund. In August 2007 the company closed a $12 million Series B round with backing from Intel Capital, Acacia Capital and Pond.
Although the Chinese mobile TV market has been slow to get off the ground, with perhaps 500,000 receivers sold since the launch at the Summer Olympics, a market of some 5 to 6 million devices is expected to emerge during 2009, with some Chinese figures suggesting it could be double that.